Books Blog : auschwitzhttp://evpl.org/community/blogs/books/archive/tags/auschwitz/default.aspxTags: auschwitzenCommunityServer 2008 SP1 (Build: 30619.63)"Auschwitz: a new history" by Laurence Reeshttp://evpl.org/community/blogs/books/archive/2008/11/18/quot-auschwitz-a-new-history-quot-by-laurence-rees.aspxWed, 19 Nov 2008 02:20:00 GMT9a7b961d-7882-4302-b701-732ca0e566f2:894MediaPhile@evpl0http://evpl.org/community/blogs/books/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=894http://evpl.org/community/blogs/books/archive/2008/11/18/quot-auschwitz-a-new-history-quot-by-laurence-rees.aspx#comments<p><a target="_self" href="http://evans.evpl.org/search/t?SEARCH=auschwitz%20a%20new%20history" title="evpl catalog"><img width="201" src="http://contentcafe2.btol.com/ContentCafe/Jacket.aspx?UserID=III21&amp;Password=BT0005&amp;Return=T&amp;Type=L&amp;Value=158648303X" alt="evpl catalog" height="296" style="float:left;" /></a>A friend of mine who just returned from a trip to Poland&nbsp;handed me the paperback edition of this book and <a target="_blank" href="http://www.mahalo.com/Auschwitz" title="auschwitz official website"><img width="293" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3287/3041692479_25fba78692_m.jpg" alt="auschwitz gate" height="266" style="float:right;" /></a>told&nbsp;me I had to read it.&nbsp; He had picked it up at a bookstore in Poland after visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau death&nbsp;camps.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>The author, who&nbsp;is an award-winning filmmaker and author as well as Creative Director of History Programs for the BBC, has written five previous books about various aspects of WWII.&nbsp;&nbsp; He and his researchers dug deep to find&nbsp;both survivors and workers who would sit down for in-depth interviews.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>What was most disturbing to me&nbsp;was how coldly efficient the Nazis were.&nbsp;&nbsp;Once the decision was made to eliminate the Jewish population in the areas that they conquered, the Nazis needed to develop a method.&nbsp; They started out shooting people but there were too many bodies to be disposed of, plus&nbsp;the murders offended&nbsp;the SS troops&#39; sensibilities.&nbsp; They tried trucks and carbon monoxide poisoning, then eventually moved on to the fake shower chambers and the crematoria.&nbsp; </p>
<p>Engraved over the entrance to Auschwitz was the slogan &quot;Work Makes One Free.&quot;&nbsp; The guards&nbsp;were instructed to&nbsp;calmly greet their victims and invite them to remove their clothes and put them neatly in a pile (to reclaim later)&nbsp;before showering.&nbsp;&nbsp;Attempts were&nbsp;made to keep&nbsp;the new arrivals as ignorant as possible of their terrible fate.&nbsp; Only a small number of SS troops were stationed at each of the camps,&nbsp;manning the guard towers and machine guns.&nbsp; The prisoners themselves were coerced into doing the&nbsp;awful work of killing their fellow prisoners and disposing of them.</p>
<p>We all know that the Nazis killed not only&nbsp;Jews but also gypsies, Catholic clergymen, homosexuals, Soviet soldiers, the disabled and anyone else they abhorred.&nbsp; But they also killed so they could sieze property, resources,&nbsp;and assets of the displaced to support their expansion and war efforts.</p>
<p>It has always been difficult to understand how an advanced Western country such as Germany could descend to such depths.&nbsp; With the problems facing our world due to scarce resources and exploding population growth, one hopes that the mechanized killing techniques developed by&nbsp;Hitler and the Nazis do not&nbsp;rear their ugly head in the future.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://evpl.org/community/aggbug.aspx?PostID=894" width="1" height="1">nonfictionNazisauschwitzconcentration camps